Saturday, October 31, 2009

A Bloody Good Barefoot Run

After the regional high school cross country meet, my buddy Chuck swung by and we did a run together on some of the trails at Twin Brook. After talking to Chuck about it, I decided to up the ante a little on my barefoot running, as there were quite a few long sections of trail that were pretty rugged compared to the grassy fields and beaches with packed sand I have been doing all of my barefoot running on. Chuck was wearing Vibram Five Fingers, probably a much better choice mostly because of a few gravely sections (which reduced me to a walk).

As you can see from the picture above, it wasn't flawless. I kicked a rock or root really hard about a mile or two into the run and consequently fell pretty hard. I immediately got up and started running again, not wanting to give the pain a chance to settle in. Fortunately, it looks worse than it actually is. Even after I stopped, it didn't feel so bad. No biggie.

That little incident aside, I was pleasantly surprised at how I did on trails with much more rocks and roots. They were pretty easy actually, only the aforementioned graveled sections were a nuisance. And also that rock or root that I kicked. However, it was a good little test. Glad I did it. Looking forward to a longer run tomorrow!

I guessed it would only be a matter of time before you took your barefoot running off the grass. I'm, sure the pain would have been the same with the vibrams (but without the blood perhaps). Glad to hear that the PF has gone.